Canelo Alvarez: Alfonso Gomez Mentioned, But What About Mayorga and Money?

Alfonso Gomez has been mentioned as another possible September opponent for Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, by Alvarez's trainer, but I wanted to point out something here. This is from Notifight.com's Jose Luis Camarillo, via BoxingScene.com:

A few days ago, Alvarez's manager Jose "Chep" Reynoso mentioned former champion Ricardo Mayorga as a possible candidate, but Gomez would certainly come at a much cheaper price.

And this is from a Dan Rafael article on the same subject, from yesterday:

"I know one name mentioned was Mayorga, but he and his promoter [Don King] might price themselves out," Schaefer said.

What I want to mention here is that Mayorga's purse for his March 12 fight with Miguel Cotto was $50,000. While I'm sure he got some portion of the PPV revenue for that fight, it probably wasn't much, and plus that show wasn't some big seller anyway. All in all, Mayorga didn't leave with a huge amount of money by any means, and $50,000. For reference, Mike Alvarado made a $50,000 purse for his Pacquiao vs Mosley PPV opening bout. Mayorga may be notorious, but he's not making the big bucks these days, so one of two things could be happening here:

1. Golden Boy isn't keen on matching Alvarez against Mayorga, who for all his faults can still thump a little, and Alvarez is starting to hear some criticism for avoiding punchers.
2. Golden Boy expects Mayorga and King won't be keen on it, and figures they'll ask for a lot more money than they got to face Cotto, who is a veteran star instead of a kid.

I'm not trying to accuse anyone of "ducking" anyone here, or looking for a way to, but the "Mayorga might ask for too much money" thing comes off funny when you realize the money -- or lack thereof -- Mayorga made in his last fight against Miguel Cotto.

As for Gomez, he's promoted by Top Rank so that would be tricky, and he's a welterweight. It's not that he's a bad fighter, but we've seen Alvarez beat guys at that level. Alvarez can't get away with "he's young!" forever, and the skeptics are going to start coming out. I'm a lot higher on Alvarez than I am on Adrien Broner, but Broner is only a year older than Alvarez, and has fought Daniel Ponce de Leon and Jason Litzau this year, which is every bit as good as Matthew Hatton and Ryan Rhodes. Some of what Alvarez does is amazing given his youth. But some is not amazing, but the matchups aren't really amazing, just better than average. And since he's so good, and they're calling him a "champion," stay-busy type fights are going to meet some criticism. That's just how it's going to be.